Premier League Match 27 - Sheffield United 0 Southampton 2

 

Unleash the Thunderbastard

There was a point where I didn’t think we would even be having a conversation about whether a game was a must win game or not but here we are. This is what tends to happen if you have 8 defeats out of 9 or 1 point out of 27.

The mitigating factors have been well documented but all that stops now. There are no excuses left. Today we are playing the team at the bottom of the league, who have been there all season, they have had two days less rest than us and their injuries are much worse than ours.

We’ve had some positive news with both Kyle Walker-Peters and Ibrahima Diallo being back in full training along with Takumi Minamino. Sheffield United on the other hand have only two central defenders left because the rest are all injured and they had another one sent off on Wednesday night.

I’ve seen it mentioned that this is more like a “must not lose” game. Bullshit. We are playing a team who are demonstrably crap and all the cards are stacked in our favour and as long as we match them for work rate and all those intangibles like heart and guts, we have to be winning this game. As mentioned, they are light in defence and even though they are all fit, they don’t have a striker worthy of the name at Premier League level. No excuses.

Team news is in and this proves that we have no excuses with KWP, Diallo and Minamino all starting.  Nathan Tella also selected with Redmond and Djenepo on the bench so the only question was would it be Minamino or Tella up front with Danny Ings.  For the Blades, the shite forward lottery has been won by McGoldrick and Brewster and their back three is all players who wouldn’t be playing there normally.

Saints start well and are on the front foot and immediately win a couple of free kicks over on the left hand side because Tella is too fast for their defenders and they keep bringing him down. There are about eight minutes gone and Bertrand swings in a free-kick from the left hand side and it’s pretty uneventful but in the aftermath Danny Ings is sat on the ground and this doesn’t look good. After a brief examination from the physios, the rolling fingers gesture is out and Ings is off to be replaced by Che Adams.

The ball begins bouncing off our forward players and it looks like it’s going to be a day where we struggle to score but the ball over the top to Tella is on and Diallo picks up the ball about 30 yards from our goal, gets his head up and pings a big diagonal over the top into the path of Tella, who controls and streaks past Ampadu who clumsily carts him over in the penalty area. There seems to be a slight delay whilst Paul Tierney catches up with play and gives a penalty.  Quick VAR check and no, Ampadu has got nowhere near the ball and up steps JWP with this full free-kick routine and whips it into the bottom left hand corner, giving Ramsdale absolutely no chance.  We’ve scored a goal!

Free-Kick, Penalty, Easy.

The Blades get a free-kick about 40 yards out on the left hand side which gives us a chance to practice our high-line-statues-pray-for-offside method of defending free kicks. John Fleck puts a great ball in to be fair and it goes all the way across to Bryan at the far post who heads it down using his nose and up and over the bar but our master plan has worked again and he’s offside.

To be fair to Sheffield United, they are playing some decent stuff through midfield and are actually finding quite a lot of room in our defence and another good ball comes over from the right and side which McGoldrick controls and pokes goal-wards, forcing Forster into a decent save low down but once again, it’s offside. They have a shout for a penalty just after this but when you see the replay, Bogle has made what can only be described as an embarrassing cheating pathetic fucker of a dive to try and con the referee. When are we going to start booking players for this?

We approach half time and we are totally in control, passing the ball around at the back waiting for the half-time whistle, until JWP plays it into midfield to Diallo who plays one of the worst passes that I’ve ever seen, straight to Brewster who plays McGoldrick in. The master marksman advances and is clean through on Forster, who he knows is 6 foot 7 tall and so trying to chip him was probably the dumbest option he could possibly have taken.  Cheers for the catching practice. So, we get away with it and go into the break 1-0 up.

It’s been a decent enough first half and I’m happy that we are leading. Diallo has struggled a little bit in the centre of midfield but in my opinion we need to keep him on and for him to play through it because if we take him off then we are having to pull players out of position to cover yet again. If we keep playing the ball to Tella and he keeps running into the space behind the defence then we are likely to get more free kicks and maybe even a red card for someone because the Sheffield United defenders just can’t handle him.

Saints first attack of the second-half sees Armstrong drive forward from midfield get to the edge of the penalty area and then feed right to KWP. His low cross finds Adams beyond the back post. Adams tries to hit it across goal and Ramsdale makes a decent save and Baldock clears it as far as Lundstram.  The danger looks over but he tries to chip the ball forward and succeeds only in hitting Bertrand’s head with it. As the ball loops up Armstrong reacts well and chest it into the path of Adams who from the edge of the box, hits an absolute thunderbastard of a shot on the half volley, screaming into the near post top corner, giving Ramsdale absolutely no chance. What a fucking goal! Honestly, he has played like a Make-a-Wish competition winner since he’s come on but that is a fucking brilliant goal.  Get in!

Suddenly the game has become quite easy. Sheffield United are pushing forward but without any quality and it leaves us with huge amounts of space on the break. Nathan Tella is the first one to have a go, left footed from the edge of the box and it’s a good effort destined for the bottom corner but fair play to Ramsdale, he gets across and makes a decent save.

Armstrong on the left hand side plays a cute ball outside the full back to the overlapping Bertrand and his cross along the 6 yard line is met by Minamino who, given his previous performances in a Saints shirt, you expect to bulge the net but he hits it rather disappointingly wide of the near post.  It’s nearly a Stuart Armstrong wonderland as he cuts across from the left wing and works a shooting position before cutting it back towards the post and narrowly wide.

Sheffield United are still trying to play and the ball goes to Bogel the Dive, who rather than do anything with it, decides to take another shit dive.  It is literally right in front of the referee who sees it, waves play on and we break again through Minamino. His ball puts Adams through on the right and side and he has a clear run to the goal but he ignores Armstrong inside him and he doesn’t really show much conviction with his shot and Ramsdale blocks again.

Redmond is on for Tella now and again we break up a Blades attack and create an almost identical chance. This time it’s Redmond who cuts in from the right hand side and with Armstrong, Adams and Minamino in support, he hits a tame effort at  the goalkeeper which again Ramsdale saves comfortably.

With just 30 seconds left, Fleck goes straight through the back of Adams and we have a little handbags punch-up in which McBurnie decides it’s a good idea to take on Vestergaard.  They both get booked and Fleck gets booked and away we go with a free kick.  The Blades have one more attack, get in on our right and cross it and big Fraser sticks a boot to it. As it lands on the edge of the box McBurnie decides to go for a dive under a challenge from Djenepo and we break again through Armstrong, who again finds Redmond and a defender falls over in front of him but still manages to stop him.

We won a game. This is not a drill. Southampton FC have won a league game.

Don’t get me wrong, none of this matters but if we weren’t in the situation that we are in and you look at this game in isolation, we should’ve won it about 5-0. We didn’t win it 5-0 because we butchered a series of chances in the second-half, either playing a shite final ball, drilling it straight at the goalkeeper or picking the wrong man to pass to. Sticking the ball in the net is the most difficult part of the game but bloody hell, we do nothing if not prove that sticking the ball in the net is the most difficult part of the game.

Nathan Tella: So Fast He Doesn't Touch the Ground

First mention today must go to Ralph because I thought that starting line-up was absolutely perfect. Personally I would have played Minamino upfront and Tella on the wing but playing Tella as a striker with his pace, was exactly the right thing to do and was proven by the amount of times he was fouled, including for the penalty in the first half. Tella had a superb game I thought, especially in the first half.  His only thought was to run in behind them or to play the ball into the space behind the Sheffield United defenders and turn them round and make them do something.... like panic and give penalties away. For that alone he deserves an extended run in the team and it’s something that is probably likely to happen, given Danny Ings injury.

When Danny got injured, it was exactly the right thing to do to put Adams on because of his record against Sheffield United and with it being his former club and all that. Adams played the first half like he was a competition winner but what a fucking goal that was, absolutely smashing the shit out of it. Brilliant.  You can’t hit a ball better than that.

Got to mention the big man Fraser Forster today who didn’t have the most to do but did everything he had to do really well. The difference in this guy to when he was last in the team is ridiculous. It’s really strange to see him arriving on-screen to get involved in the play when it’s only just in our half sometimes. He’s doing weird shit like heading the ball out of play in a left back position 30 yards outside the penalty area and stuff like that. A couple of years ago he would still have been nailed to the goal-line but he is now affecting the game. He even ran 40 yards out of his goal to get involved in the punch-up at the end.

The return of KWP was absolutely huge for the balance the side and Bednarek and Vestergaard both benefited from having our first choice back 4 in place for the first time in quite a while. Diallo made a difference in midfield and I was pleased that Ralph kept him on even though he had a couple of dodgy moments, especially that ball he gave away at the end of the first half but he’s rusty and he’ll be much better for getting through the game. It doesn’t matter if he plays in the next game against Manchester City or not but it was definitely the right thing to leave him on today because if we had taken him off, we would’ve been pulling Armstrong in from the wing to stick him in central midfield and disrupting things.

Takumi Minamino is a strange player. There is obvious quality in him which is shown in previous games as well as today but he has the ability to look like a 17-year-old playing his first ever game a professional level where he does some really dumb naive things or panics and just kicks it anywhere.

Sheffield United will be going down this year, of that there is absolutely no doubt. The reason they are going down is not because they don’t play nice football because they do. Through midfield they were actually not too bad but their strikers are absolute fucking dog shit and this isn’t news.  McGoldrick had some decent touches but he can’t run, Brewster is a big unit and put himself about but he just gives up and stops running and then can’t be bothered. For £25 million he is absolutely pathetic. Mousset is shite and just kicks the ball randomly out of play and Billy Sharp is 47. I’ve left of the best till last in Oli McBurnie who is a fucking arsehole. It’s alright being an arsehole if you’re a good player but he’s got the double whammy of being an arsehole and being absolutely fucking shit. He’s in the conversation for the most out of his depth Premier League player that I’ve ever seen and how this guy steals a living as a Premier League footballer is totally beyond me. You could see that the Saints players thought he was an arsehole as well and they were queuing up to try and get him to do something stupid to get sent off in the last couple of minutes.

Anyway, our chances of joining Sheffield United in the Championship next season look a bit further away now as 33 points looks a hell of a lot better than 30 and as I write, we are now 10 points clear of the relegation zone. One more win should just about do it. You’ll be hard pressed to have much optimism about picking up that win in our next game which happens to be Manchester City away who, assuming they beat Manchester United (update: they lost), will be looking for their 23rd consecutive win in a row (update: not now). Having won today, we will at least be able to shrug our shoulders regardless of the result on Wednesday. It’s a great feeling to win a game. Up the fucking Saints.